MP: ThreeFort - Experimental game - Squirrelloid/Bandar Log wins!

[rdonj]

Why not just make solar brilliance castable instead of darkness uncastable?

[LDiCesare]

I have no issues with the remaining spells, earthquake, darkness, etc. to remain in.

[Valerius]

I have some concerns that solar brilliance would be abusable. A strong astral nation could have one mage cast solar brilliance, another antimagic, give them some bodyguards, and blind a good percentage of an opponent's army. You may well sacrifice the mages/bodyguards - but it would be worth it.

Sure, you can do this in a normal game but there your opponent might have recourse to GoH, Chalice, even faery queens or a mage swap with a nation that has healers. Also, a normal game transitions to SCs, who aren't threatened by solar brilliance, whereas this game won't (though it's possible thugs will end up dominating the field of battle).

With the current nation lineup it's mainly Agartha that will really be able to take advantage of darkness. I'm more inclined to give them a chance to shine than to help out astral nations.

[LDiCesare]

I agree, I'd rather not see solar brilliance.

[LoloMo]

High Hitpoint, Ethereal, Stealthy, Life Draining Army of Umbrals from turn 1 with Darkness may be slightly OP.

[Valerius]

We will learn to fear Ashdod! Umm, I mean Agartha.

So the reactions to Darkness range from concern to ambivalence. NooBliss are you ok with removing Darkness but leaving Iron Bane and Earthquake in? You'll still have two spells you can use better than anyone. Other options that come to mind are increasing casting requirements/gems for the spell or having a fixed duration to it (I should be able to mod it to only last a given number of turns).

[Squirrelloid]

Darkness from turn 1? Do you know how hard a time of it Agartha has casting Darkness? Getting a D4 mage is hard!

For some reason I thought solar brilliance was in. Oh well, whatever, still not especially concerned.

[LoloMo]

Charm is out, but Hellbind heart is in, anyone have any concerns with this?

[Valerius]

Sure, Hellbind Heart is now out. After what I did to blood magic I don't mind hitting it with the nerf bat again.

BTW, I just finished fixing the tga file for five starts. If we can work out a compromise for Darkness I can make the fixes for the mod and upload everything so we can get started.

[Valerius]

About D mages. There's no mound fiends so I don't think there's a way to summon a mage guaranteed to have D2/D3. You'll probably get a spectre or lamia queen with D2, but getting D3 is more unlikely. Moving Darkness to D5 casting requirement would make it something for pretenders or really boosted D mages.